Man of the Match is Edward Norton

Thursday was a long day with plenty of classes and very little exciting. I had football Thursday after class and found out that I am playing both middle-right line backer while we are on defense and wide receiver while we are on offense. Don't know about special teams but at this rate I may be on there as well.

Friday I had my first Environment to International Business and let me tell you, it was definitely an international environment. Of the 70 plus students taking this course this is 1 English speaking Caucasian - Me! There are 4 Latin Americans a handful of non-English speaking Europeans and the rest are 100% Asian. What makes life even more enjoyable is that 40% of my grade in this class is based on a group paper. Which I just LOVE by the way. However, these are not your stereotypical brilliant Asians who are great at numbers and dominate the class. Example 1: Our professor (who is Indian by the way and has a Scottish/Indian accent which is fantastic to understand) has asked each group to pick a company and two FOREIGN markets, one developed and one developing, which it can enter. The paper will explore the possibilities in these markets and then make recommendations for the company. This group of my students which happens to be 6 Japanese students have picked Honda (shockingly a Japanese company) and the two Foreign markets to develop in - USA and JAPAN. These are two foreign countries in which the product does not exist. I feel that there was a small communication error here folks. Example 2: A student in our class asked if his group would be allowed to submit their paper in Japanese because that was the common language of their group. He wanted to submit his final term paper to an Scottish/Indian professor, at the University of Glasgow, in Japanese. I rest my case. But I can only imagine what the rest of the semester will bring. My group - 5 gentlemen from France 2 of which speak English at an understandable level, and 3 of which passed their English as a Second Language test but have difficulties understanding full sentences at a time and are unable to full translate their writing into written English. So my role in this group is editor.

Friday night I went out with the Football boys and after many, many straw-bombs I stumbled as far as an Indian take-out shop were after ordering a donner (Which is a donair but spelt differently) I ended up with Cajun chicken and some sweet sauce. Great night with the guys!

Today I awoke with a throbbing head, bloodshot eyes, my stomach eating its self and refusing the chicken all at once and my legs so sore I could barely stand. - Fine shape for a hockey Game! I dragged myself over to the pitch to take part in our last preseason game. I played center defender and although we were beaten again, I think my game is slowly improving. However, I did learn that you cannot raise the ball if a player is with five yards of you. Not even to clear your end. It is for safety as they don't want me clearing the ball into another players face, but it takes some getting used to as I have been taught "if you ever get in trouble, just put it high off the glass and out." However, even with that little mishap, I won Man of the Match which is the same as player of the game. At the end of each match we vote on a Man of the Match and a Donkey of the Match. Donkey of the match is given out to anyone who made the single most regrettable play and the Man of the Match is given out to who ever played their position best. Defense is where I am meant to be apparently. My hope is that the next game is not played in freezing rain and gale force winds. I might have contracted pneumonia this morning.

After the Hockey game I met up with John and we hopped a train to Edinburgh. As the title depicts, Edward Norton won Man of the Match, because as I was sitting on this train to Edinburgh a woman came up to me and asked me if I was American. I replied no and she explained that she thought I might be Edward Norton because I look like him and have the same accent. I regretfully explained that No, Ed was my older brother but I get that a lot. Joking, but it was a compliment and I thanked her and carried on to Edinburgh. Went to see the castle, roamed around town, poked around a few of the shops and otherwise just saw what all the fuss is about. It is a gorgeous city with some unbelievable architecture. I dare say it is more impressive than Glasgow but that could be that fact that it has a giant Castle on a Hill right in the middle of it all. The weather could have cooperated a little more but otherwise it was a good day.

Tomorrow I am headed down to Kelvingrove park with some of the football guys to play a game of "pass-ball" which I pretty sure is the same as flag football. Also need to get some reading done for Monday and otherwise try to get a real nights sleep.